Patrick Ewing is a Georgetown University Men’s Basketball legend, NBA Hall of Famer and now he is currently the head coach at his alma mater. Over this past weekend, following his team’s upset victory over #1 ranked Villanova in the Big East Quarterfinal, Ewing was faced with a great deal of scrutiny as he kept being stopped by security at Madison Square Garden. One might consider this ironic considering that this is the same building where his jersey hangs in the rafters after playing for the New York Knicks for 15 seasons. “I thought this was my building and I feel terrible that I’m getting stopped, accosted, and asked for passes. Everybody in this building should know who the hell I am,” Ewing said. 

Poor performances by contracted security guards at basketball venues is something that has been an issue for a long time, but has only recently come to full public scrutiny because of the technology. The most recent example is when the President of Basketball Operations of the  Toronto Raptors, Mesi Ujiri, who was first challenged then physically struck by an Alameda County Sheriff’s deputy following the 2019 NBA Finals. First, the department tried to lie and say that Ujiri refused to present a credential and “struck our deputy in the face,” until that claim was immediately refuted by eyewitness testimony and body cam footage. 

It has become clear that these stops of black coaches and executives are rooted in racism. You almost never hear about this kind of situation happening to white coaches or executives in power. These incidents are what have led to NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, to make the decision to hire their own security professionals at key games going forward. If these “security” professionals at college or professional games can’t even educate themselves to be more knowledgeable about the people in charge, then they don’t deserve to be the ones cashing these checks to do the job. 

Aside from this minor inconvenience, congratulations to Ewing and his team on their Big East tournament championship win over Creighton 73-48.  Georgetown is the champion of the Big East yet again, with the greatest Hoya of all time leading the way. This grants Georgetown an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, which will be their first appearance since 2015.